U.S. New Home Sales Rise as Prices Fall Sharplyby Tom Moeller July 26, 2017

Sales of new single-family homes improved 0.8% to
610,000 during June following a 4.9% May increase to 605,000, revised from
610,000. Despite the rise, sales were 4.4% below the March peak.
Expectations had been for 615,000 sales in the Action Economics Forecast Survey.

The median price of a new home declined 4.2% (-3.4%
y/y) to $310,800. May's median price was revised down sharply to $324,300.
The average price of a new home eased 0.5% (+4.2% y/y) to $379,500.

Last month's gain in home sales was led by a 12.5%
(33.3% y/y) rise to 180,000 in the West, which followed an 11.9% gain. In
the Midwest. home sales increased 10.0% (-12.0% y/y) to 66,000 following
three months of decline. Home sales in the Northeast held steady at 41,000
(41.4% y/y) after a 7.9% increase. To the downside were sales in the South
which fell 6.1% (+0.9% y/y) to 323,000 after a 6.8% rise.

The months' supply of homes at the current sales rate
inched up last month to 5.4, but remained down from December's high of 5.6
months. The median number of months a new home was on the market fell to
3.0 (NSA), down from 3.6 months in March.

The data in this report are available in Haver's USECON
database. The consensus expectation figure from Action Economics is
available in the AS1REPNA database.